The Usual Choices
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel & Ethan Coen)
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)
Blackkklansman (Spike Lee)
Green Book (Peter Farrelly)
A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper)
Vice (Adam McKay)
But how about...
A Simple Favour (Paul Feig)
This is a bit of a find and one of the most purely entertaining comedy-mysteries to come out of Hollywood in a long, long time. Anna Kendrick is an exhaustingly pro-active, busy-bee, cupcake of a single Mom who meets cynical, bruisingly-blunt, businesswoman Blake Lively (good name)...opposites attract (with the help of some potent martinis) and an unlikely friendship is forged. But one day, Blake goes missing and her new best friend Anna decides to find out exactly what happened...and you wouldn't believe what that was. I laughed often at the irresistibly-perky character of Anna (a touch of the 1930's screwballness about her) and at the sheer audacity of the script...it darts off in quite eyebrow-raising directions but never forgets to keep you enthralled & amused. One of the 21st Century's unjustly undersung movies.
...and what about...
All is True (Kenneth Branagh)
This is yet another film which has been largely overlooked / dismissed by the public & critics but I thought was terrific...am I really so odd? This looks at Shakespeare's last 3 years of life, retired from writing & regretful of his life choices & grieving for his plague-slain son...but is it all true?...does it really matter? It makes for an involving, moving story anyway with many threads to it (marital sorrow + gender & class equality + the need for Art to devour a normal life + parenthood as the greatest love + is religion fundamentally fandom? + does God curse genius as compensation for the rest of us?). Melancholy & pastoral in mood with beautiful visuals and a clever script, this is a great one...it truly is...and easily Director Kenneth's most accomplished film. Which is about time, too.
...not to mention...
Leave No Trace (Debra Granik)
An Iraqi war vet returns to the USA harmed by his experiences and can't be around people...with his beloved 13YO daughter as his only companion, he lives a hermit's existence in the wild...the girl, although adoring her father, eventually realises that only he is damaged. This is a beautiful, gentle film (I kept expecting violence or at least aggressive f-wording, but no...how refreshing is that?), so well played by Ben Foster and astoundingly so by actually-18YO Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie (watch her). There is nothing soppy or overdone here, no big soaring strings or sunsets as wet eyes twinkle; this is a human story about a man who is no longer capable of fitting in with the rest of us and a young girl who knows that she has to. The ending is inevitable and right and, of course, still sad.
...and one personal unmentionable...
A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper)
What...AGAIN?? This is Version #5 (#1 is actually 1932's What Price Hollywood, doncha know) and you must know the basic story in your sleep: a star goes up as another star goes down, down, down and out. Nicely-hirsute Bradley Cooper plays a Steve Earle-ish rockstar who has the compulsory drink'n'drugs problem, while Lady Gaga belts out song after song which are likely to become fleeting stadium fodder...then reborn in Audi commercials. While both actors (and Sam Elliott, who has a couple of nice moments) effectively stir up the angst, neither will blow you away like Judy Garland and James Mason did in the eternal 1954 version: no music scene here is as revelatory as Judy singing "The Man That Got Away" while James sits in awe. Irritatingly, the only adjective anyone in this movie seems to know to express emotion is "fucken"...surely the script could have broadened its vocab a little. This was a prime contender for 2018 Oscar glory?!? Has Hollywood's creative well run that dry?
PS And while I'm at it, do we really need another version of Little Women?
My Top 10 Films of 2018
 |
| With the cries of "Thick as a Brick!" echoing in his mind, Ian quietly misses the glory days of Jethro Tull. |
#02 A All is True (Branagh)
#03 A- Leave No Trace (Granik)
#04 A- American Animals (Layton)
#05 A- A Quiet Place (Krasinski)
#06 A- Boy Erased (Edgerton)
#07 A- Blackkklansman (Lee)
#08 A- Eighth Grade (Burnham)
#09 A- Gloria Bell (Lelio)
#10 A- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coens)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 A- Juliet, Naked (Peretz)
#12 A- Vice (McKay)
#13 A- Hotel Mumbai (Maras)
#14 B+ Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Heller)
#15 B+ Game Night (Daley; Goldstein)
#16 B+ Beautiful Boy (Van Groeningen)
#17 B+ The Favourite (Lanthimos)
#18 B+ The Front Runner (Reitman)
#19 B+ Black Panther (Coogler)
#20 B+ Colette (Westmoreland)
#21 B+ Stan & Ollie (Baird)
#22 B+ Ben is Back (Hedges)
#23 B+ Mid90s (Hill)
#24 B+ Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony & Joe Russo)
#25 B+ Ladies in Black (Beresford)
#26 B+ Searching (Chaganty)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B Bad Times at the El Royale [very overlong multiple-storyline film where ugly overtakes the intrigue]
> B Deadpool 2 [a quite-funny superhero film that struggles to maintain the sex'n'ultra-violence joke-quality]
> B First Man [a must-see for Spaceheads but only so-so for ordinary people]
> B The Sisters Brothers [psychological western that hasn't learnt enough from Anthony Mann or Fred C. Dobbs]
> B Green Book [aka Felix & Oscar Go on a Road Trip...Oh, and BTW, Racial Prejudice is Bad]
> B Hereditary [slowburn horror which winds-up with a hysterical finale that scatters images all over the place]
> B Mary, Queen of Scots [more feminist point-maker than wholly-captivating history lesson]
> B Sicario: Day of the Solado [Sicario #1 was a crime thriller + horror movie; this is just a crime thriller]
> B Wildlife [a well-acted family breakdown story where nobody's behaviour seems to make much sense]
> B Winchester [a horror movie with a terrific premise and a lousy American accent from Helen Mirren]
> B- First Reformed [have you ever watched a movie and wished you could change its last 10 minutes?]
> B- Ant-Man & The Wasp [a rather-bland Marvel movie that Endgame needed to have happen]
> B- Beirut / The Negotiator [I still don't understand why the Middle East Conflict will never ever end]
> B- Bohemian Rhapsody [WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL, PEOPLE??]
> B- Destroyer [you just watch a horrible person be horrible to other horrible people]
> B- King of Thieves [yet another lovable-rogues-carry-yawn-out-a-heist movie]
> B- Mission Impossible: Fallout [aka Realm of the Absurd...With a Sidestep Into Stupid]
> B- The Mule [wants you to feel sorry for an illegal-drug-transporter just because he's a senior citizen]
> B- Tully [a look at post-natal depression which is derailed by a peculiar ending]
> B- Widows [Mothers: if your man doesn't provide for you, it's okay to risk turning your children into orphans]
> B- Aquaman [sensational-looking movie; shame about the plot, performances & the hero]
> C At Eternity's Gate [featuring great artistic beauty and some truly nausea-inducing handheld camerawork]
> C The Old Man & the Gun [Question: would you excuse an armed criminal if he looked like Robert Redford?]
> C Venom [promises to be a superhero/horror hybrid but chickens out and becomes boring instead]
> C A Star is Born [A Personal Unmentionable]
> D The Breaker Upperers [a TV skit-show idea s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out into a Kiwi-Comedy movie with few ha-ha's]
> D Pacific Rim: Uprising [a frantic hi-carb movie for boys who don't care what they watch as long as it moves]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 2018 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
American Woman (Scott); Annihilation (Garland); Arctic (Penna); Cam (Goldhaber); Crazy Rich Asians (Chu); Diane (Jones); Dragged Across Concrete (Zahler); Fast Colour (Hart); The Golem (Paz); Gwen (McGregor); If Beale Street Could Talk (Jenkins); The Kindergarten Teacher (Colangelo); Knuckleball (Peterson); The Last Race (Dweck); Mandy (Cosmatos); Night Comes On (Spiro); The Nightingale (Kent); Oh Lucy! (Hirayanagi); Possum (Holness); Private Life (Jenkins); Skin (Nattiv); Sorry to Bother You (Riley); Support the Girls (Bujalski); Suspiria (Guadagnino); Under the Silver Lake (Mitchell); Unsane (Soderbergh); Upgrade (Whannell); The Vanishing / Keepers (Nyholm)
Best Performances of 2018
Mahershala Ali in Green Book
Olivia Colman in The Favourite
Willem Dafoe in At Eternity's Gate
Lady Gaga in A Star is Born
Richard E. Grant in Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk
Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody
But how about...
Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade
Hands up everybody who wants to be 13 years old again. Yeah, me neither. And who thinks it's any easier now? (Fact: the rate of teenage suicide is rising significantly and yet, with the advent of social media, kids have never been more in contact with each other...hmm...). Elsie is about to finish Middle School, a little chubby with a few pimples, has a single dad, no real friends, an addiction to her phone and is sick of not fitting in. She makes youtube videos giving life advice but is unable to follow any of it herself. The film goes through what seems to be about a month in the kid's life and all you want to do is hug her and say "It'll be okay darlin'. It really will. You are terrific." The fact that someone does that near the end of the film is cathartic, a relief...you feel better. And Elsie must be the realest adolescent in cinema. It's a wholly-natural performance; she just is. (And I know what I'm talking about: I taught & worked with this age-group for nearly 40 years). A must-see for everybody's 13 year olds. Gucci.
...and what about...
Hugh Jackman in The Front Runner
One of Director John Ford's regular directions to new-to-him actors was "Stop acting!" The ability to be able to act naturally (which is sorta the same as faking realism...a superficial but essentially accurate summary of an actor's craft) must be tough, because so few of them can manage it. Barbara Stanwyck, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper and a handful of other Golden Era Greats were shining examples of the invisible knack. And, in this role of a good man who can't keep his dick in his pants, Hugh Jackman joins them. I immediately forgot I was watching Wolverine or Peter Allen and believed that Hugh was the guy: a flawed human being who is fundamentally decent but whose desire for even more than what he currently has, overtakes his common sense (not to mention his ethics). No histrionics; no grand gestures; no blatant grabs for sympathy. Hugh is a wannabe-world-shaker who we watch fall down. And realise, like he finally does, that he did it to himself. How naturally everyman is that?
...not to mention...
Julianne Moore in Gloria Bell
While I am sure that most actors relish taking on a challenging role such as multiple personalities, a physical disability, a sociopath/serial killer, a great person from history or an evil twin, I have always thought that the most difficult character for an obscenely-rich'n'famous red-carpet celebrity to play would be an ordinary person like you or me. Can they remember back that far in their lives? Gloria Bell is an average middle-class middle-aged woman with a divorce, kids, her ageing mother putting the guilts on her, a handful of friends who she's secretly a little bored with and a desire for something more because she is acutely aware that time is speeding up. And Julianne is that woman, a commoner: a little afraid, foolish & prone to being hurt, still caring after all these years though, loves to dance and sing to kitschy songs and, above all else, is able to (eventually) get back up and keep going, no matter what, 'cos you just got to, right? Come and meet someone you already know.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody
All I see is a little silhouetto of a man who admittedly can do the fandango, but there's no thunderbolts and lightning. He's just a poor boy who nobody is going to love for long, I betcha. Destined to join the Roberto Benigni / Jean Dujardin Oscar Club; a future pub quiz question at best.
And those teeth make him look like my friend Flicka.
My 10 Favourite Performances of 2018
 |
| "Hey John! Do you want to play Reed Richards in yet another Fantastic Four reboot?" |
#02 Julianne Moore in Gloria Bell
#03 Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade
#04 Keira Knightley in Colette
#05 Hugh Jackman in The Front Runner
#06 Cynthia Erivo in Bad Times at the El Royale
#07 Ethan Hawke in First Reformed
#08 Jim Broadbent in King of Thieves
#09 Tim Blake Nelson in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
#10 Russell Crowe in Boy Erased
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 Emma Stone & Olivia Colman & Rachel Weisz in The Favourite
#12 Sunny Suljic in Mid90s
#13 Margot Robbie in Mary, Queen of Scots
#14 Steve Carrell & Timothee Chalamet in Beautiful Boy
#15 Anna Kendrick in A Simple Favour
#16 Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther
#17 Melissa McCarthy & Richard E. Grant in Can You Ever Forgive Me?
#18 John C. Reilly & Steve Coogan in Stan & Ollie
#19 Charlize Theron in Tully
#20 Julia Roberts & Lucas Hedges in Ben is Back
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Viggo Mortensen & Mahershala Ali in Green Book [I prefer Walter & Jack and Tony & Jack]
> Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga in A Star is Born [I prefer Fredric & Janet and James & Judy]
> Willem Dafoe in At Eternity's Gate [I prefer Kirk and Tim]
> Ryan Gosling in First Man [I prefer most of the documentaries and the real Neil in them]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 2018 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: A Simple Favour (Paul Feig)
SILVER: All is True (Kenneth Branagh)
BRONZE: Leave No Trace (Debra Granik)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Hugh Jackman (The Front Runner)
SILVER: Ethan Hawke (First Reformed)
BRONZE: Christian Bale (Vice)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Julianne Moore (Gloria Bell)
SILVER: Keira Knightley (Colette)
BRONZE: Anna Kendrick (A Simple Favour)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Jim Broadbent (King of Thieves)
SILVER: Tim Blake Nelson (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs)
BRONZE: Russell Crowe (Boy Erased)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale)
SILVER: Margot Robbie (Mary, Queen of Scots)
BRONZE: Judi Dench (All is True)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Ben Foster & Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie (Leave No Trace)
SILVER: Emma Stone & Olivia Colman & Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)
BRONZE: Steve Carrell & Timothee Chalamet (Beautiful Boy)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade)
SILVER: Sunny Suljic (Mid90s)
BRONZE: Angourie Rice (Ladies in Black)
The Alternate Razzies for 2018 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
Pacific Rim: Uprising (Steven S. DeKnight)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Helen Mirren (Winchester)
