Sunday 9 December 2018

My movies of 2018.

I live in rural Ireland, a long way from any ‘Art House’ cinemas,  and 25 miles from our little ’local’  multi-screen, so I don’t get to see a lot of films on first release – just 25 this year-  or a wide range.    But even on my limited viewing I think 2018 has been a very good year.    

So here are my top movies of 2018, and my bottom movies,  and a few that were entirely competent, but did no more than I expected.   They are in no order within these categories.   

You might have missed some of these, so there may  something here to encourage you to catch up with them – or even to watch them again, an activity that I usually find very rewarding.   Most of them are 'properly' reviewed below.   

Five Stars = great movies

BlacKkKlansman.  Spike Lee’s amazing retelling of a true story from the 1970’s, tragically still relevant, with John David Washington and Adam Driver.  

A Star is Born is a revelation of the combined writing, directing, acting and singing   talents of Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.   Could this really be the best re-telling of this now classic tale? 

Black Panther Ryan Cooper’s film is certainly politically important, gender-wise and ethnically, but it is also a great movie by a new Directing star.     The ensemble cast includes Chaswick Boseman, Lupido Nyhong’o,  Angela Bassett, Daniel Kaluuya and the amazing Michael B. Jordan (see Creed)

The Happy Prince is Rupert Everett’sunflinching andmoving account of Oscar Wilde’s last days.    It took Everett 10 years to get this on screen, and maybe a lifetime to prepare his performance as Oscar.   

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri.   A morally complex tale, brilliantly written and directed by Martin McDonach, and wonderfully acted out by Frances McDormand,  Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson.  

Four Stars = really good

The Darkest Hour.   The acting by Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas earned the four stars for this historically important drama,  but one needlessly invented scene lost it the fifth.  Joe Wright Directed, much in the style of his Atonement.  

Widows.   Steve McQueen masters another genre, a thriller adapted by Gillian Flynne from  Lynda La Planta’s TV series.   It  also ‘just happens’ to be bring a multi-ethnic female cast together; Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Bailey Rhyse Walters and Elizabeth Debicki, and they are wonderful.   

Incredibles 2 is every bit as good as the first movie.  Need I say more? 

Avengers: Infinity War.   I have no idea how it works, but it does.   Cannot wait for part 2.   But, hey, I will just have to. 

Bad Times at the El Royale  Drew Goddard earned his writing spurs on Buffy,Angeland Alias,and co-wrote the genre-subverting Cabin in the Woodsover a weekend with Joss Whedon.   (Chris Hemsworth got his part as Thorthanks to Whedon seeing the rushes of that movie.)   When writing and directing Bad TimesGoddard revisited genresin the way that Pulp Fictionreworked pulp fiction, ably aided by Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Eriva, Dakota Johnson, Lewis Pullman and others (including Hemsworth).   Great fun.  

Creed  is the best boxing film I have seen, created by Ryan Cooper, standing on the shoulders of the Rocky movies and bringing Stallone back on screen,  as he coaches the new boxing star (son of Apollo Creed), played by Michael B. Jordan. 

Phantom Thread.   Paul Thomas Anderson  wrote and directed this movie (announced as Daniel Day-Lewis’s last).  It is part of PTA’s own tour of genres (Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood,  Inherent Vice, The Master, Magnolia...).  This is an acting class led by Day-Lewis,  Leslie Manning and  the Luxembourgian Vicky Krieps. 

Three an a half Stars = better than 3, but not quite 4.

Isle of Dogs Any Wes Anderson movie gets my attention, and while this may not be Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums orThe Grand Budapest Hotel,   I still liked it a lot.   Anderson seems to have his own rep company, and most of them are here. 

Mary Magdalene.   I really enjoyed Garth Davis’s previous film, Lion,and was not disappointed by his telling of Mary’s story.    Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix play well together and I thought there was nothing there to contradict the Biblical account, plus some fresh insights and a welcome denial of the slander by Pope Gregory that Mary was a ‘fallen woman’.     Seeing Phoenix in this and then You Where Never Really Here  was remarkable.  

Three Star = glad I saw them

Mamma Mia! Here we go Again.   

Solo: A Star Wars Story,   I previously saw Alden Ehrenreich (Solo) in the Coen Brothers Hail Caesar, and was impressed by him in both).  

The Little Stranger.   Worthy, well acted, but somehow underwhelming.  

The rest – did what they said on the poster, but no more. 
Mission Impossible: Fallout  
Deadpool 2
The Spy who Dumped Me 
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 
Ready Player One
Red Sparrow

Biggest disappointments?

Hereditary  - started so well as a stylish psychological thriller, but then degenerated into standard schlock horror.

A Quiet Place - good to look at, sold as horror, but actually just bad sf.   I say much more in m review! 

Black ’47-  this could have been an important movie about the Irish famine, but turned into standard action movie.   A misguided mix of genres. 

2018 movies I hope to catch up on

Get Outpartly becauseI spotted Daniel Kaluuya as a teenager in the 2011 BBC series The Fades,and predicted stardom for him.   

UnsaneWith Clair Foy. I will always try to catch a Steven Soderbergh movie. 

The Sisters Brothers.  John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, directed by Jacques Audiard. 

The Miseducation of Cameron Poat, with Chloe Morentz.   

The Old Man & The Gun. Robert Redford, Daniel Glover and Tom Waits. 

Mowgli.  Andy Serkis, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hollander. 

Ballad of Buster Scruggs. The Coens, Tim Blake Nelson (when a DVD is released).

Creed IIMichael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, but not directed by Ryan Cooper, who was busy on Black Panther.

Crazy Rich Asians.Michelle Yeo.

The Favourite.  Olivia Coleman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone.

Ant-Man and the Wasp.  Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly.

First Reformed.   Ethan Hawke, Paul Schrader. 

Still to come in December
Mary Poppins Returns. 
Aquaman
Mary Queen of Scots
Vice.
Destroyer
They Shall Not Grow Old.


Caught up with this year; 

Lady MacBeth.   William Oldroyd took Alice Birch’s adaptation of Nikolai Leskov’s novel and cast Florence Pugh in the lead.   Stunning.   Ms. Pugh has recently starred in the TV serialization of John le Carre’s novel The Little Drummer Girl.  

Black Hawk Down.  I have no idea why it took me so long to catch up on this.
Ridley Scott took a great cast and put them through the US  Ranger’s Boot Camp in order to honourably recreate the disaster that overtook  US heliborne troops in Mogadishu, when they were part of a UN Peacekeeping force.  Visceral.   

Audition.  I really have to watchMiiki Takashi’s fascinating tale again to see if the final horrifically violent act is ‘for real’, or simply the imagined fears of the protagonist.   Fascinating.  

Eye In The Sky.    Drone warfare poses  a host of ethical questions and this movie, starring Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman, does a decent job of dramatizing them.    I notice that Colin Firth was one of the producers of this film, as well as Lovingand The Happy Prince,  two films I am grateful for. 

You Were Never Really Here.  Lynne Ramsey and Joaquin Phoenix produced a  brutal, fascinating,  compelling and somehow (amazingly, puzzlingly) beautiful portrait of a deeply traumatized and very  violent man.   

Wonder Woman. Broke the DC mold the way Black Pantherdid  for Marvel.

The Death of Stalin  Brilliant (stellar) ensemble playing to a hilarious Ianucci script.    I am sure the actual events surrounding Stalin’s demise were just as farcical, but no-one is saying.   Or ever will.      
   
Love and  MercyPaul Dano plays Brian Wilson’s early days in The Beach Boysand then and John Cusack his tragically delayed  his recovery. A film about much more than music, but such music! 

The Handmaid Park Chan Wook’s take on a Sarah Water’s novel is a beautifully composed,  deeply complex and very erotic adaptation.   

And seen again from a Galaxy far away and long ago;  

Tom Jones,  the 1963 British romp, with the young Albert Finney, Susannah York and Diane Cilento  and the not at all young Dame Edith Evans.   Still fun after all these years.

The Godfather.      It was a long time since I watched this, but it was well worth seeing it again.    This time I paid attention to the lighting by Gordon Willis,  who had just shot Kluteand went on to  All The President’s Menand a host of  Woody Allen movies.     I had not known that the opening wedding scenes were shot at night, as they were behind schedule, and had also been advised to see how Willis  helped develop character by the way he lit Brando and Pacino.   

Dances With Wolves . I think this is a fine movie, and enjoyed  seeing Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica),  Graham Green and Kevin Costner all over again. 

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.   I recently read John le Carre’s  latest novel, A Legacy of Spies,and it explores the repercussions of this 1960’s tale, so going back to the (faithful) movie version was quicker than re-reading the original book.    Richard Burton,  Claire Bloom and Oskar Werner fleshed it out well, and Martin Ritt directed with great discipline.    Shot in stark black and white it is a worthy adaptation of one of the few spy books to rank as a first class novel.