In a year built on ingenuity, creativity, and beauty, the Academy Awards did what they always do and awarded the movie that had the best campaign. Much like the American political system, the best movie rarely wins best picture. Instead, we’re left with Green Book, a white person’s take on fixing the race problem in America. As a whole, the movie isn’t bad, it isn’t great, it just is - it sits there and will sit there like many other Best Picture winners (Crash comes to mind). The dustbin of movie history is quite large and stuck up in the ends of the broom are plenty of films deemed great at the time. I expect time will put Green Book in the broom, where it belongs.
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| The Rider |
As the awards season mercifully ends, I’m able to sit down and look at my own list. Due to many snow storms filled with Redbox rentals, I was able to see sixty-five new films this year (although plenty of them were watched, as per usual, in 2019). In years’ past, I’ve watched far too many films designated for the dustbin, but as my movie tastebuds develop, I saw plenty of wonderful, inventive, and creative works this year. Of those sixty-five movies, I disliked only 20% (hated only 10%). In fact, nearly half, 30 out of 65, were movies that easily could have made my list. Films like First Reformed, Support the Girls, Crazy Rich Asians, and The Rider all took the artistic craft in new directions, bringing to the screen stories we’ve never seen before from differing racial, economic, and religious backgrounds. While I don’t think 2018 was one of the all-time great years for film, it was a damn good one, with plenty more worthwhile trips to the theatre than wastes of time. With that being said, I present my Top 15 movies of 2018.
15. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Each year since 2013, I’ve searched for the Philomena slot. Philomena was a sweet, true story starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, telling a tale that had no right to be as enjoyable to watch as it was. The final movie I had the opportunity to see, Can You Ever Forgive Me, fits this category. Starring Melissa McCarthy and the brilliant Richard E Grant, Forgive Me finds a way into our hearts despite telling the story of a true misanthrope, Lee Israel. Two movies took me out of the theatre and into the bookstore to read the source material, Annihilation (the book supersedes the movie) and Can You Ever Forgive Me, a must-see and must read.
14. Avengers: Infinity War
In past years’ lists, I’ve put plenty of prestige films in the slots over movies that were simply enjoyable. Not this year, at least seven of my fifteen are here because I had a blast watching them. Avengers: Infinity War starts the enjoyability train with a bang or should I say a snap. Marvel capped a ten-year romp through the cinematic world with an incredibly engaging first half of the current Avengers swan song. It was pulled off in large part due to the film’s decision to focus on developing the villain, Thanos. While brutally psychotic, the charisma of Josh Brolin shines through and made watching evil reign victorious rather fun.
13. The Favourite
As a follow-up to his 2017 disturbing masterpiece, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos continues to prove why he’s one of the most interesting directors in Hollywood. Here, he is able to deliver a wickedly, delicious re-telling of Queen Anne and the women who served her. The Favourite is one of the best acted films of the year delivering three outstanding performances from Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz. Olivia Colman’s Oscar speech was incredibly fitting for such an honest film. The camera oscillates between scenes of hilarious dark comedy to disturbing back-stabbing drama. Rarely does a film so perfectly fit the category of dramedy.
12. A Simple Favor
The next film on the list of enjoyable films is Paul Feig’s dark comedy A Simple Favor. It’s rather perfectly situated on this list next to The Favourite, and while Lanthimos has constructed the better overall film, Feig has created the perfect theatre going experience. There’s something for everyone in this movie and it never loses its sense of humor even as the plot veers into thriller territory. A Simple Favor is the cosmopolitan drink of movies - you may criticize, but that won’t keep you from ordering at least one.
11. A Quiet Place
Congratulations to all the women nominated for Best Actress, but keeping Emily Blunt off of that list was downright criminal. Never has a porcelain tub and a nail been more terrifying. As John Krasinski delves into the horror genre, he doesn’t lose his sense of honesty and maturity toward the themes of family. In a movie where silence reigns supreme, where there are more sign language scenes than spoken word, the moments where silence is ruptured and we glimpse into the horrors of a life without sound, that’s when the movie comes alive.
10. Disobedience
A one-line synopsis: a forbidden romance threatens the boundaries of a strict Orthodox Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of London; all set around a funeral. Does it sound like a fun movie? Disobedience falls prey to caricatured thematic tropes, but surpasses its limitations with three of the best acting performances of the year from Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Alessandro Nivola. Situated on this list next to A Quiet Place, the story lives in the fraught silences and tension-filled glances between Weisz and McAdams. On the other side, Alessandro Nivola delivers such a restrained and committed performance that lives on the boundaries of how do you serve God and serve your wife, when those two things are oppositional.
9. Game Night
My review for Game Night is simple. If you found it funny, you loved it; I loved it. Game Night combined with A Simple Favor were my two most enjoyable movie going nights of the year. A big thanks to Nicole Klostermann for being around for both. Game Night is devilishly fun, Rachel McAdams is startlingly hilarious, and Jesse Plemons continues to grow into one of the best young character actors on the planet. A perfect movie for your friends. Have a game night, watch Game Night.
8. Widows
Widows suffers from an uneven script and on the re-watch, enough plot holes to fill the armored car, but it transcends those issues by combining great acting with perfect directing. The list is short: David Fincher, Yorgos Lanthimos, Greta Gerwig, Denis Villeneuve, and now, Steve McQueen; just list one of those five directors and I’ve already bought my ticket to the theatre. Steven McQueen understands intimate moments told inventively better than any working director on the planet. The infamous shot from Widows comes through the mouth of Colin Farrell, but the vision of a deeply gentrified neighborhood in Chicago. Steven McQueen is a master at work in Widows, however his success works in tandem with the star-making performances from supporting actors Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, and the entire collection of women including Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, and the phenomenal Elizabeth Debicki. Of all the films on this list, Widows was the first one I needed to see twice. Deeply disturbing and not for the faint hearted, Widows is a must watch for any aspiring director.
7. Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
Those of you aware of my own personal preferences know that I’m not a fan of animated movies. I watched Incredibles 2 and found myself barely able to stay awake. However, each year a film surprises me and Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse is precisely that film. It quickly races into my three most beautiful animated films list behind Kubo and the Two Strings, and Spirited Away. The film is purely enjoyable from both a storytelling and animation point of view. Perhaps the greatest Spiderman movie ever made, Spiderverse integrates comedy with loss, hardship with triumph. The scene delivered between a silent Miles inside his room and his father searching for words on the outside is perhaps the most poignant scene of the year. This is a film that dives deep into the depths of what it means to be a hero.
6. Black Panther
Marvel’s best movie made to date; there I said it and I won’t take it back. Ryan Coogler elevates the entire superhero formula by creating an intensely fun, yet socially significant comic book movie without having to rely on quips to bring in the humor. Top to bottom one of the best ensemble casts of the year, Black Panther lives up to the hype and completes the task of creating fully-realized heroes as well as villains. I look forward to seeing how the sequel can build on the success of the first, without losing its core sense of self in the process.
5. Eighth Grade
By far the most disturbing scene of the year comes inside of the social commentary movie about approaching adulthood, Eighth Grade. For those who saw the pool scene and weren’t on the edge of your seat yelling at the screen, I envy your middle school experience. Eighth Grade is nothing short of a horror movie for those of us who suffered the slings and arrows of being social pariahs. I have never connected on such an emotional level with a performance and character more than Elsie Fisher’s portrayal of Kayla. Both Fisher and writer/director Bo Burnham create an familiar yet private look into the modern American early teenage outcast. Eighth Grade is an emotional rollercoaster. We cry in anguish as Kayla waits by the screened door, afraid to show her one piece bathing suit and we cheer with glee when she realizes that the awkward kid might just be her best friend. In 2003, Evan Rachel Wood starred in Thirteen the docu-drama turned horror film for parents to watch. Eighth Grade is the more honest portrayal within the same format. It’s genuine, tender, and emotionally satisfying.
4. Won’t You Be My Neighbor
In this day and age, it’s a bad idea to idolize someone famous. In the end, you’re bound to uncover something terrible from their past, but there are exceptions. Fred Rogers is one of those exceptions. In a patient and honest portrayal, documentarian Morgan Neville takes the viewer on an intimate and extremely emotional journey behind the cardigans and land of make-believe, into the heart and mind of Fred Rogers. This film made me fall in love with Mr. Rogers all over again. For those of us in the speech/theatre world, his congressional appearance in 1969 is the stuff of legends and I’m thankful we are able to re-live and remember a true American hero like Fred Rogers. “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
3. Roma
It’s rare when you watch a modern movie and immediately know it will be studied in film classes for the next hundred years. Within the first five minutes, I knew Roma was such a film. Roma is a quiet and simple story about a complex woman. As we watch, Cleo, played miraculously by Yalitza Aparicio go through the daily turmoil of taking care of a family that cannot take care of itself; we are engrossed in the everyday beauty of seemingly inconsequential things from cleaning dog poop off of the driveway to watching martial arts in a dusty field. Each of these moments is carefully produced and shot to create a masterful work. The heartbreak is deeper and the joy is greater because of the connection the camera creates with Cleo. Roma is a movie that transcends language, but never forgets to celebrate heritage. It is by far the best drama of 2018.
2. The Death of Stalin
It’s hard when you write year-end reviews to avoid being hyperbolic. When you proclaim things like, “this is the funniest movie of the past decade,” you should actually mean it rather than just run out of words to write. With that being said, this is the funniest movie of the past decade. The script is perfectly selected, like the courses at a five-star restaurant. Armando Iannucci has been responsible for some of the best comedy in recent years from The Thick of it (and subsequently In the Loop) to HBO’s Veep to The Death of Stalin, each production has been widely heralded as being extremely funny, while simultaneously remaining relevant, truthful, and poignant. This is especially true in Stalin, where we are treated to a whirl-wind comedy that crashes swiftly to the ground in the final act to reveal the underbelly of evil and corruption. This is satire at it’s truest form. Extreme hilarity mixed with heavy social commentary and tremendous real world consequences. The cast is superb, lead by the wickedly evil and equally hilarious Simon Russell Beale as Lavrenti Beria. It is by far the best comedy of 2018.
1. Free Solo
I’ve never had a documentary reach the top of my list, but then again, I’ve never seen a movie like Free Solo. On its face, Free Solo isn’t the type of movie I would generally go for. I’m terrified of heights, I don’t care about climbing, and I think when documentarians break the fourth wall it dooms the overall piece. Throw all of that out the window for the most beautifully shot film that I’ve ever seen. Free Solo is a triumphant success for both documentarian and subject matter alike. The athletic feat Alex Honnold completes (spoiler, he doesn’t die) is up there with any single accomplishment in the history of sports. It seems impossible to imagine just how difficult the task of free solo climbing Yosemite’s 3,000 foot El Capitan can be, but the camera creates all the imagination for us. At all times, there are three stories at play inside of this compact movie. The first is the climb itself. Alex takes such intricate notes about pieces of the rockface that are smaller than pebbles. Each of these hand/foot holds must support his entire body, otherwise he will fall to his death. The second is the story of the documentarians, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, along with their camera crew as the group grows closer with the subject. There is an intimate and loving story that goes alongside the climb about just what are the limits of filming what could potentially cause someone’s death. And can the camera itself create more pressure thereby leading to said subject’s death. The final story is the one that grabbed ahold of me and didn’t let go. Aside from the climb itself, we are brought into the neurotic and at times self-centered world of Alex Honnold as he tries to make the climb and hold onto his girlfriend at the same time. As an artist, this story portrayed so many of my own questions and concerns. Is it possible to be truly great and simultaneously live a happy life? What must be given up in order to accomplish greatness? Alex’s struggle to tame both the beast inside and on the rock face is a story that must be shared and gladly seen. You will not watch a more complete movie this year. That is why Free Solo is both the best documentary and the best movie of 2018.
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