2018 year in review and looking ahead
It was a bit of an odd one, 2018, wasn’t it?
After considerable maths (it was horrible) I realised that my film watching consisted of:
134 films (and one tv movie) 61 new releases 43 films new to me (but not new releases) 30 re-watches
And the 100th film I saw this year? The atmospheric but nonsensical The Nun.
It feels like both a lot and not enough at the same time. For every new film I managed to find time to watch there seemed to be five or so other films that I missed out on. Part of that was personal reasons leaving me not overly in a film watching mood, but another was simply the wide range and sheer amount of films that came out in 2018.
I didn’t see CAM, the paranoid doppelganger Netflix horror that is meant to be brilliant, I didn’t see Crazy Rich Asians or Cold War, and I’m still yet to watch Mandy or Roma.
Still found time to watch Peter Rabbit though.
On that note, I will not be going any kind of worst of list. Online film culture has been so focussed on negatives the last few years and I’m not sure I can be bothered to add to that.
So one last hurrah for 2018 as I present my top films of the year. Now this will be 100% MY list. If it was new and I saw it in 2018, it counts. That includes film festival releases.
Honourable mentions go to The Little Stranger, Summer of ’84, The Night Eats the World, Anna and the Apocalypse, Avengers: Infinity War, Journey’s End, Mary Poppins Returns, and Love, Simon.
10. Upgrade
My “pure entertainment” pick. An 80s throwback but never in that highly obnoxious way that a lot of 80s nostalgia porn like to do, this movie features a man who, after a brutal attack leaves his wife dead and he paralysed, is aided by an experimental hyper intelligent computer chip to walk again and give him means to enact his revenge. It’s a rush with some brutal but beautifully edited fight scenes. Sit back, switch your brain off, and enjoy the Hell out of it.
9. Hereditary This is one that gets under the skin. I haven’t seen it since the release, and still every now and then it pops into my mind and makes me shiver. It’s both slow and heavy going, the story of a family coming under supernatural influence after the death of the family matriarch, and I can understand why some people found the final act to be over the top, but personally I found it to be not unlike a descent into all-encompassing madness and full of fascinating details worth coming back to.
8. Black Panther
Yes, Infinity War was the big superhero spectacle of the year, but in terms of being a well-made, well-acted, and just simply good film, Black Panther wins out. It has elements of that familiar Marvel formula, but it has a style and an edge, not to mention a strong central performance from Chadwick Boseman, which sets it above. Wakanda forever.
7. Little Forest
This is one that I saw at a film festival and decided that it was just too darn charming not to include. A Korean film about a young woman returning to her home town and doing some self-reflection by means of recreating some of her childhood foods, this is just a purely simple and pleasant experience. It’s full of light laughs, beautiful scenery changing with the seasons, and a puppy, what more could you want?
6. Annihilation
I wish I could have seen this on a big screen. This movie is a weird and beautiful examination of the human capacity for self-destruction through the lens of a group of scientists exploring a strange alien atmosphere that has taken root on Earth. The performances are all solid and that bear, man, that bear is pure nightmare fuel. Alex Garland is a great science fiction director and we more stuff like this.
5. A Quiet Place
How tense is this movie? Well at one point I nearly climbed into the lap of the woman next to me. A simple concept of a family who cannot make noise for fear of being hunted and killed by creatures who hunt through their sense of hearing, it is executed so effectively by star and director Josh Krasinski. He knows how to use tension and, of course, silence so effectively. What really made it for me though is young actress Millicent Simmonds, whose performance as the family’s deaf daughter is the heart of the film in all the fear.
4. Lady Bird
A good coming of age films speaks to you even when you don’t necessarily have a lot in common with its protagonist. Maybe we didn’t grow up, as the titular Lady Bird did, in early 2000s California, but we feel in ourselves the truth of all of her emotion and frustration at those difficult teenage years; navigating school, the future, friendships, first romances, and the complicated push-pull of parental relationships. Greta Gerwig manages to create a singular time and place that feels universal, and Saoirse Ronan helps that tremendously in her main role. Also Laurie Metcalf’s talent is wasted on crappy sitcoms when this is what she is capable of on screen.
3. BlacKkKlansman
I’ve never really been one for Spike Lee films. That's not a criticism of him as a filmmaker, more that there has yet to be one of his films that I could really get into. But I found BlacKkKlansman to be a fascinating, funny, but also quietly horrifying experience as Lee draws this line from the true story of Ron Stallworth and one of his cop buddies infiltrating the KKK in 1970s Colorado right the way through
to present day racial tensions of America.
2. The Shape of Water
First time I saw this was 2017, but I love it just that much that it’s worth repeating. Guillermo del Toro is one of my favourite directors and his period fairytale of woman meets fish man feels both wondrously new and soulfully familiar at the same time. It celebrates differences with beauty but just a touch of brutality too.
1. Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku)
Now one of my other favourite directors. I have been aware of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s work since 2011’s I Wish, but it was with 2015’s Our Little Sister that I really started to adore his knack for portraying funny, beautiful, sweet, and sad unconventional family dynamics. He takes all of that to the next level in Shoplifters, asking us to examine what exactly it is that makes a family as we view this patchwork group of people who may not be related, but have found each other when society at large has cast them aside. It is so delicate and complex and leaves you in a place that has no easy answers. There are so many moments in this film that even thinking about for too long will have me crying, particularly a certain beach scene with actress Kirin Kiki, a stalwart of Kore-eda’s work who sadly died this year from cancer. A souring encapsulation of the human soul.
So with 2018 done it is time to look to the future. Instead of naming some of my highly anticipated films I am going to do my 2019 New Year film resolutions. There is a general over-arching resolution of read more, watch more, write more, but here are a few more specifics.
Watch one film every week that is new to me.
I managed 43 last year, but let’s go for a full 52 or even more than that.
Read at least 35 books.
Even if it’s manga or a comic, just always have some reading material on me and take every opportunity to have a read.
Expand my Japanese cinema watching.
Not just horror, Kore-eda, or Kurosawa, although in the latter’s case I do need to watch more of his films as well.
Be more adventurous with my anime viewing.
I have a Crunchyroll subscription, I need to use it.
Update this blog on a regular basis.
This is the big one, really. I set this blog up to be my space where I could write about film at a more casual pace and separate from my current film reviews at The Digital Fix. Unfortunately, I’ve been a little too casual and this blog hasn’t seen much use since my FrightFest coverage and a couple of lists. And yes, I am aware that this post is essentially just two lists as well. So, I’m going to endeavour to have a more regular update schedule, whether it be a full review, an editorial, or even just a “what I’ve been watching” type summary. And also I will link to my writing elsewhere on the internet when it gets posted.
So that about covers everything. Hopefully will be seeing more of you in 2019.
Happy watching.